


A Supermarket in California (+Announcement)

by plasticdaisy



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1950s, Eventual Romance, Greasers, Humanstuck, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, POV First Person, Period-Typical Homophobia, Rock and Roll, Smoking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-28
Updated: 2020-04-10
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:47:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23352691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plasticdaisy/pseuds/plasticdaisy
Summary: It's 1955, and post-war San Francisco is ruled by the bohemians. The Student League for Industrial Democracy is in its prime, beats and greasers line the streets, and the beginnings of hippie culture are starting to blossom.Dave Strider is a beatnik working at The Black Cat Café and gay bar, knee-deep in alternative culture. Hardly interested in pursuing much more than anarchy and jazz, he's thrown into a whirlwind of hot-rodding and rock n' roll when he meets greaser and songwriter Karkat Vantas.For my boyfriend.
Relationships: Dave Strider/Karkat Vantas, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 28





	1. The Underground Restaruant

**Author's Note:**

  * For [KittyMotor](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KittyMotor/gifts).



_1955_

_The Raven Café & Bar, San Francisco_

“Dave, _finally_! I’ve been looking for you everywhere!”

The chair across from mine squeaks as John shifts it, parking himself at the other side of the table. I put down my coffee cup on a coaster, raising my eyebrows at him – nonverbally asking him to elaborate.

He quickly catches on, running a hand through his mussed hair. The sleeves to his flannel are rolled to his elbows, probably because he’d been running around looking for me. I don’t know why he doesn’t check the café first; maybe because he wishes I wouldn’t be here so often.

“I was wondering if you wanted to come to dinner with Jade and I – she’s busy today, or else she would have come herself, but, yeah. It’ll be on us, since you got her that gig here the other week.”

“Are you sure?” I lean back in my chair, drumming my fingers absentmindedly on the surface of the table. It’s a little gummy, but it’s old – it likely just needs a deeper clean than it’s getting. As someone who works here more than a few nights a week, I feel obligated to tell my boss, and I have once before. But, considering he’s wrapped up in almost thirty-thousand dollars in legal issues, I don’t think he cares too much about his tables being just a little sticky.

“Yeah, of course! I also invited Rose and her, uh,” John pauses, his eyes shifting around the room. He pushes up his glasses. He waves his hand in an awkward, dismissive fashion.

“This is a gay bar, man,” I reply dryly.

“Right! Yeah! Her _girlfriend_.”

“Well?”

“Well, what?”

“Are they coming?” I shift, adjusting myself so I can take another sip of my coffee.

“Yeah, they’re coming. So, think about it, okay? I don’t know if you have a shift, but we’re meeting tonight at that restaurant Jade really likes, the _ethnic_ place.”

John wiggles his eyebrows as he says ‘ethnic’. It makes my skin itch uncomfortably.

“Right,” I reply blankly, “I’ll think about it.”

“Cool.”

John stands up. His chair squeaks again. He unrolls his sleeves, buttoning them again at his wrists. At the action, my fingers twitch mindlessly; I fix the sleeves of my turtleneck.

He bids me a fairly quick goodbye – he is always in a kind of self-constructed tornado, rushing from place to place in a breathless whirlwind. With his exit, I begin to feel the silence of the café. It weighs on my chest with a dull ache. I don’t like the quiet, and typically, the hustle and bustle of the room is loud enough to kill the lack of music when there isn’t a performance going on at the time.

However, it’s a Wednesday morning, so things are uncharacteristically quiet. It’s better than my apartment, though, which is like a black-hole to any form of relief I seek. I’ve lived with my brother forever, and my job as a busboy at a gay bar that’s on the brink of going under isn’t exactly a recipe for moving out and affording a San Francisco apartment of any size or location.

Even when I’m not on a shift, I find myself at Raven; it’s the sort of atmosphere you can’t find anywhere else. During the day, The Raven Café is a beat poet’s dream; full of prolific, young writers drowning themselves in cups of strong coffee. They schedule mid-day readings every Friday at noon; milder than the performative stuff you see around dinner-time every other weekday. Even so, there are occasional impromptu readings, poets standing on tables and crushing cigarettes under their boots while they call for _chaos_ or _a better life_.

At night, though, The Raven descends into a glowing parlor for the forbidden and bohemian. Jazz musicians perform while drag-queens wearing gendered labels wander between tables, dancing and singing along. Poets and beats extinguish cigarettes in their drinks, scribbling down ideas and slapping their manuscripts as they pass them around in circles. Businessmen let loose, taking off their ties and participating in the madness, while photographers perch on tables and chairs, drooling over the excitement. Gay couples make out in corners and have sex in the bathrooms. The Raven is a place to be free, to express, and to _love_.

And even on slow, Wednesday afternoons, the energy of freedom and contrariety looms in the smoky air – but the quiet is getting to me. Even tapping my foot on the ground, the gap between the creaking floorboards and hushed whispers can’t satisfy me.

I stand abruptly, gathering my things and making a beeline for the door. I leave my coffee behind. As the cool, autumn air enters my lungs, I consider John’s offer to me; a free dinner doesn’t sound too bad after all, considering the canned soup I’d otherwise have at my brother’s kitchen table, one of its legs uneven and propped up by a stack of books with half of the pages torn out.

I push up my shades, rubbing my eyes. I’m not particularly in the mood to see my brother until I have to – creeping in at half past three-in-the-morning, dazed and buzzing with the energy of the night. He’ll know I’m there, but he won’t stir from in front of the flickering screen; he’ll confront me in the morning, pulling the stained sheets from my bed with the tip of a blade.

Dinner with John it is.

⟡

_Underground Bohemian Restaurant, San Francisco_

The warmth of the room hits me instantly, and I shrug off my jean jacket as a waiter quickly passes me, grazing my shoulder with his right arm. He has the tray he’s carrying lifted over his head.

I glance around. I’ve seen some of the people in here around before – they definitely fit more into Jade’s demographic. They have a gentler point of view, rather than the hard-edged, intensely political types I tend to hang around – my café friends are women with cropped hair and men in berets, yelling over each other about postwar society. Many of the people at the restaurant are in loose, neutral-toned clothing, and they seem to emulate a naturalistic movement that has not yet sped up culturally. Like Jade wore to her performance at The Raven, the people around me have dried flowers tied into their long hair.

“You made it!”

Jade wraps her arms around me, pulling me into a firm hug. She’s probably more muscular than John and I combined, considering my diet and his excitement for the mundane. I can feel the rough, velvety finish of her suede vest on my bare arms.

As she pulls away, Jade turns on her heel, making her way to table. She’s a lot shorter than me in the flat shoes she wears now. When we were younger, she used to wear more standard shoes – I only had a head on her. Her long skirt, an amalgamation of different fabrics, spins with her body as she approaches the table.

John is sitting to the far right, still in his flannel shirt. The sleeves are rolled up again and his face is a little flushed, though I can’t say if it’s because he’s too warm, embarrassed, or both. To his left is Rose, who tends to catch up to the fashion as it hits _chic_ , looks a little too done up for the room – she sticks out like a sore thumb in her very classic white collared shirt, only disturbed by a thin, black necklace that glints against her chest. Her hair – lighter than mine – frames her face neatly. She doesn’t greet me verbally, but her lips tilt up into a faint smile. Her girlfriend Kanaya sits beside her, a hand on her arm. She is bold for someone in a public space, but their collective refined appearances make them seem subtle compared to the bohemian atmosphere.

There is someone at the table I don’t recognize.

He’s seated next to Kanaya, playing with the paper straw in his glass of water. He’s leaning back just enough that he has to extend his arm to do so. As I approach, he glances up only briefly, meeting my eyes. His gaze is boiling with an intensity I am unfamiliar with; as if the still hot coals of a previously blazing fire burn in his eyes, ready for reignition at any moment.

He’s a greaser, I think; a leather jacket hangs off the back of his slightly tilted chair. He’s wearing a thin black t-shirt with the sleeves rolled all the way up over his shoulders. He’s lean and attractive, the muscles in his arms moving visibly as he spins the straw. His hair is thick with product, though styled forward as opposed to greased over towards the back of his head.

Jade invites me to sit beside her. She is on the other side of the stranger. As I make myself comfortable, she places her hands firmly on the table, a glint in her eye as she looks between the two of us.

“Dave, this is Karkat. He’s one of Kanaya’s friends.”

“Hey,” I nod my head in nonchalant acknowledgment. His eyes dart over me for a moment, a kind of glance I am unused to. It is laced with a meaning I’m not sure of, though it could be the dim lighting obstructing my already shaded vision.

He looks away. His brows are furrowed.

John and Jade immediately hurdle effortlessly over whatever awkwardness just transpired, starting a conversation about something unremarkable enough for John to keep up, but contrary enough to keep the rest of us engaged. The stranger – Karkat – doesn’t say anything.

I wonder what he sounds like.

The conversation starts to crawl after a while, the silence only occupied by the hustle and bustle of the room around us. Private conversations bloom in the leftovers of the table-wide banter, and I hear Karkat’s voice as only a hush. He talks only to Kanaya, and it is brief. Her expression is sympathetic.

Drumming my fingers on the table, I turn to Jade.

“Can we smoke in here?”

She shakes her head, “no – well, not cigarettes.”

I nod, pushing back my chair. It scrapes the concrete floor, making an unpleasant noise and disrupting the array of colorful carpets strewn between the crowded tables.

Once I’m outside, I regret not having taken my jacket with me – the city air had chilled with the setting sun, and the autumn breeze gives me goosebumps. After lighting my cigarette – which takes a couple tries – I run my hands across my skin. My fingers catch on my scars, and the feeling is uncomfortable enough that I let my unoccupied hand fall to my side.

After a few minutes, I hear footsteps behind me and freeze – there’s nothing I hate more than indications of unexpected presences; clues of people that could _hurt_ me.

I turn. Karkat is standing behind me, looking at his shoes. Smoke pours out from my nose and mouth like a grey wave as I shift to face him.

“Need a light?” I offer.

“No,” he replies quickly. His voice isn’t what I expected, but come to think of it, I don’t know what I was expecting. It’s a little rough, but more so like the ripples in flower petals than the ridges of a stone. His brow is still furrowed; I can’t help but wonder if his expression is perpetually displeased.

“You okay, man?” I take another drag of my cigarette as I speak. His frown deepens.

“I don’t know why you’re asking.”

“You don’t exactly look happy to be here, is all I’m saying. I mean, I guess it doesn’t help that you stick out like a sore thumb in a neighborhood like this,” my words are accompanied by a weak, breathy laugh. His brow twitches.

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“Woah, dude,” I put up my free hand defensively. It’s shaky from the cold, “I didn’t mean to, like, offend you. I just meant that you don’t exactly scream bohemian with the greaser jacket-and-hair combo.”

“Oh,” he rubs the back of his neck. I wonder if there’s product back there, or if he leaves it untouched for moments like these. I touch my hair too often to grease it.

“Not out here for a smoke, then?”

“I don’t – it’s just hot as hell in there, and it smells like an animal died.”

I laugh.

“You’re right.”

There’s a beat of silence. I break it quickly, not ready to let myself be absorbed by the quiet of the night.

“… So, A greaser who doesn’t smoke,” I take another drag of my cigarette, raising an eyebrow, “so underneath all the leather, you just listen to the Haley in your bedroom?”

Karkat visibly bristles.

“I’m kidding,” I continue, laughing through a puff of smoke, “it’s good of you to listen to that shit coming out about this garbage.”

I throw my cigarette on the ground, extinguishing it with my shoe.

“I’m not a poser,” he crosses his arms, “I saw that guy Presley in Arizona – in January. Drove all the way there.”

“Who?”

Karkat shakes his head.

“Elvis Presley. He’s new – a lot better than the fucking comets, asshole.”

“… I listen to jazz.”

He rolls his eyes. I look down as the silence falls again; I can see the light of the moon on my worn-out shoes. The pavement is stained black from the ash of my cigarette.

The quiet makes me anxious, and I fight off the urge to waste another cigarette because I’m losing my head over standing in the street outside a underground bohemian restaurant. That’s money out of my wallet and into my lungs, which, if the scientists are right, happen to be rich with about eight cancers.

No one listens to scientists, though.

“Aren’t you cold?” Karkat asks, suddenly, and I jolt a little, looking back over at him. His gaze is expectant.

“I left my jacket inside,” I murmur, looking down at the ground.

He makes a noise of exasperation.

_Fuck it_ , I think, and pull another cigarette out of my pocket. As I fumble around a little, grabbing my lighter, I freeze – Karkat is draping his leather jacket over my shoulders. It’s a little too short for me, given I have a few heads on him, but it’s big enough that I can wrap it around myself. It smells nice.

“… You didn’t have to –”

“Just don’t get ash on it and you can keep wearing it,” he interrupts me. His eyes rake over the jacket in an almost protective way; I bet it was expensive. It feels like real leather. The look in his eyes sends a little shiver down my spine.

I don’t let myself stare at him any longer, though I’m brought back to the thought of how he rolled up his sleeves past his shoulders while we were inside.

I cough as I nod and look away, pocketing the lighter and cigarette.

“Thanks,” I mutter.

We’re pulled into another awkward silence, and I look back at him for a moment. His sleeves are in fact rolled up to his shoulders. He doesn’t look cold, though; in fact, his jacket is so warm I wonder if he ever feels a chill, given he seems to be a walking furnace. I speak up again, determined to extinguish the quiet.

“So, how do I look? Am I real greaser, now?” I straighten the jacket a little, smirking.

“Shut up, you fucking beat,” he rolls his eyes, but I can see a smile dancing on the edge of his cheeks. I briefly wonder what it looks like when he laughs, but I swallow the thought, forcing it to the bottom of my chest.

We spend another twenty minutes standing outside, and I can’t explain why. Our conversation is idle, but the more we talk, the more we seem to find new things to talk about. I’ve never met a greaser I’ve liked before, but perhaps I haven’t met enough of them. He’s sharp witted, but not mean; he radiates a sort of politeness, like he holds open doors for people and pulls over his hot-rod to usher turtles out of the road.

Eventually, as our talk about his motorcycle – of course he rides a _motorcycle_ – dies away, he looks at his watch. His eyes flick from its face to the stars in the sky.

“I should go. I have work tomorrow.”

“Ah, shit, yeah. It’s getting late. Here,” I start to shrug off his jacket, but he stops me with a hand.

“Just give it to Rose or Kanaya later and it’ll get back to me. I don’t need you freezing to death out here.”

He smiles at me, more genuinely this time, and I feel something get a little lighter in my chest as he waves his goodbye. Under the flickering streetlights, I watch him grow smaller and smaller as he walks away. As he finally melts into the darkness, it just for a moment feels like we’re the only two people in all of San Francisco. 

Finally alone, I take a deep breath. The tension in my chest loosens; something I hadn’t even realized I was holding onto. I shuck Karkat’s jacket from my shoulders, rolling it over my arm, and turn to walk back into the restaurant.


	2. announcement

hi all, unfortunately i no longer find the joy in writing these that i used to. i think i am past my time here and i don’t want to write with obligation and not enjoyment. thank you for following my work and for your kind comments.

i felt it was important to let you know in the least disruptive way i could without leaving you hanging, because i cherish every comment, kudos, and view you have given me.

i hope you can continue to find joy in reading these fics - knowing they might bring someone happiness means the world to me. thank you for your support after all this time!

\- plasticdaisy/mintboy

**Author's Note:**

> i started this ages ago so hopefully i'll be able to finish it ! i know the 1950's are a popular au but i feel like a lot of counterculture doesn't get represented in that genre (which i've contributed to lmao), so i'm excited to write this
> 
> the fic is titled after a poem by allen ginsberg


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